robotsupremacyfandomcom-20200213-history
Guardian (Terminator)
The Guardian is an 800 Series Terminator that serves as a major character in Terminator: Genisys. ''Like the protagonists of ''Terminator 2 and 3, this Terminator has been re-programmed to protect humans instead of killing them. Throughout the film, it serves as the protector of Sarah Connor who affectionately refers to it as "Pops". It is portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. History The precise origins of the Guardian are unknown; it comes from an alternate future different to any that have so far been seen. While it is obviously a Skynet machine that has been re-programmed by humans, the identities of those who had acquired it remain a mystery. Even the Guardian itself does not know its re-programmer's identity since that information had been deleted from its memory banks prior to beginning its mission. In the fractured timeline of Genisys, the Guardian was sent back in time to 1973 to protect the young Sarah Connor. Skynet had targeted Sarah while she was still a child and had sent a T-1000 back in time to kill her. The T-1000 succeeded in murdering Sarah's parents, but the Guardian was able to terminate the liquid-metal android before it could accomplish its mission. With Sarah's parents dead, it was up to the Guardian to raise the young girl and prepare her for other Skynet attacks in the future. Over the years, the Guardian would teach Sarah how to defend herself against Skynet's assassins while at the same time Sarah taught the Guardian how to better blend in with human society and to exercise restraint while carrying out its role as her protector, teaching it to disable enemies rather than kill. Over time, Sarah and the Guardian established a true father/daughter relationship, leading Sarah to call the Guardian "Pops". In 1984, when a Terminator had arrived in Los Angeles on a mission to assassinate Sarah, Pops and Sarah were ready for it and confronted the murderous android mere minutes after its arrival. Pops attacked the T-800 head on while Sarah targeted the android with a sniper rifle, firing off a round that penetrated its torso and knocked out its power cell. Taking the incapacitated Terminator with them, the duo travelled downtown where they encountered Resistance fighter Kyle Reese fighting for his life against a T-1000. They were able to rescue him, but Kyle was shocked by the Guardian's presence in the vehicle. During a fight, Guardian incapacitated Kyle. When Kyle woke up, Guardian and Sarah explained to Kyle the changes to the future and that they'd been preparing for his arrival for over a decade. As they talk, Guardian detected and shot off a mimetic polyalloy tracking device on the side of their truck, which would lead the T-1000 to them. The T-1000 tracked them down and, after a brief car chase, found them in an abandoned warehouse. Upon arrival, the T-1000 impaled Guardian with a pole through the shoulder, pinning and disabling it while the T-1000 went after Sarah, reactivating the T-800 to kill Kyle. Kyle managed to deactivate the T-800 once again and Sarah lured the T-1000 into an acid trap to dissolve it. Despite being badly damaged, the T-1000 managed to make it through the acid and strangled her, but by then Guardian had freed himself, grabbing the T-1000 and holds it under the acid to dissolve it. However, doing this dissolved the skin on Guardian's right arm before Sarah neutralized the acid so it would not damage his endoskeleton. Guardian and Sarah then removed the T-800's CPU and dissolved its body in acid so it could not be found and used to create Skynet by reverse engineering as had initially happened. The Guardian and Sarah revealed to Kyle their plan: they intended to use the Time Displacement Equipment that they had developed to travel to 1997 to prevent Judgement Day by destroying Skynet before it was ever created. They needed the T-800's CPU to act as the time machine's operating system, but due to its damaged skin, which would take years to regrow, Guardian could not make the trip as the magnetic field would destroy it. The Guardian chose to "take the long way" and prepare for their arrival instead. While preparing, Kyle remembered "Genisys" from his time jump and told Sarah and Guardian about it. The Guardian confirmed it was possible that Kyle experienced the memories of an altered timeline by experiencing a nexus point while inside the machine and Sarah was convinced to jump forward to that time. The Guardian sent them forward in time to 2017 and remained behind alone. Guardian continued to gather equipment, supplies, and weapons for Kyle and Sarah's use in raiding Skynet in 2017. Over the years, its skin sheath regrew so it appeared human again even if it was elderly. During the preparation period, the Guardian took a position as a member of the construction crew for the Cyberdyne Systems Headquarters to gather intelligence and added Kyle and Sarah's data into a bunker so they could survive the destruction of the building. However, the Guardian was eventually laid off. The Guardian had also kept a collection of photographs and crayon drawings Sarah had made of the two of them when she was a child, along with her old cassette player. Due to age, his servomotors had also begun to degrade and experienced lockups. In 2017, after learning of Sarah and Kyle's arrival in San Fransisco, Guardian went to retrieve them and found them at a hospital in the company of John Connor, their son from the aborted timeline. Guardian attacked John seemingly without provocation, but to Sarah and Kyle's shock, they saw that John had survived a shotgun blast and witnessed his wounds heal by themselves. John revealed that he was no longer a mere human; after he had sent Kyle back through the Time Displacement Field in 2029, he was ambushed by a new type of Infiltrator, a T-5000 that housed the core consciousness of Skynet itself. When Skynet touched John, it infected him with nanomachines that rebuilt his body at the molecular level, turning him into a fusion of man and machine. Remade as a T-3000, John was sent back in time by Skynet to ensure its creation. Guardian and John fought, becoming caught in the magnetic field of an MRI machine. Kyle shut the machine down long enough to allow the Guardian to escape but then switches it back on, leaving John trapped temporarily. They escaped to the Guardian's base on the outskirts of San Francisco. While preparing for their attack on Cyberdyne, the Guardian explained John's current state to the pair. It cast doubt on Sarah's belief that John could be saved due to the irreversible nature of his conversion but offered a method of defeating him: a magnetic device that could restrain John. The Guardian and Kyle had a slight competition over who could load bullets into clips faster, but the Guardian's servomotors locked up and it dropped some bullets due to the glitch caused by the damage from 1984. It told Kyle that "I am old" and he decided to keep the incident from Sarah. The Guardian left the base to build a device, similar to a cestus, that would restrict the T-3000's move. While preparing his weapon, the T-3000 tracked them down and they were forced to flee on a school bus. During a confrontation on the Golden Gate Bridge, John succeeded in separating the group. The Guardian was able to catch up to them and rescued Sarah and Kyle before they fell off the bridge. The trio were then arrested and taken into custody. During a one-sided interrogation, the Guardian detected the presence of another Terminator and attacked a member of the police entourage, revealed to be the T-3000 in disguise. The Guardian takes the upperhand this time and was able to hold him off long enough for Kyle to fly them off the roof in a helicopter. John followed in another helicopter and almost succeeded in shooting them down but after losing sight of them for a moment, the Guardian leaped from their helicopter and smashed into John's, causing them to crash into the lobby of the Cyberdyne building. While Kyle and Sarah feared for the Guardian's safety, he reappeared in time to save him from John by pinning him to a wall with a lamppost. The Guardian informed Sarah and Kyle that he hid a fallout shelter in the construction blueprints to protect them from the explosion. It had been programmed to identify her and grant her access. The three set out to destroy Skynet by planting explosives, but as they were, Skynet evolved at an astonishing rate. John found them again and began attacking, taking Sarah hostage as a means to prevent the Guardian from activating the detonator. Unable to defy his programming to protect Sarah, the Guardian gave the detonator to Kyle and attacked John. A brutal fight ensued, in which the detonator was destroyed, but the Guardian managed to hold his own for a time, slashing John repeatedly with a laser post and seemingly making him incapable of taking on disguises anymore. However, John eventually gained the upper hand, ripping off the Guardian's left arm and threw him in front of a prototype time machine, helpless. John taunted him about his inability to defeat him, but Sarah and Kyle saved him. Taking advantage of Kyle and Sarah's distraction, the Guardian retrieved his magnetic glove and punches through John's chest, restraining him. The Guardian ordered Kyle to activate the machine which would destroy anything non-organic, including John and the Guardian due to his damaged state. Kyle reluctantly complied over Sarah's objections as the Guardian dragged John into the magnetic field. The Guardian asks Reese to take care of "his" Sarah as they activate the time machine. The Guardian restrained John as the magnetic field started to tear them apart, but John eventually broke free of his hold and tried to escape the field. The Guardian battled John to keep that from happening, though The Guardian eventually flew off from the field and into a vat of unprogrammed mimetic polyalloy. John was unable to escape the field and was destroyed, causing the time displacement machine to explode and set off the charges, destroying the Cyberdyne Complex along with any residual machine-phase matter from the T-3000. The Guardian survived as it was reactivated by the polyalloy and used it to repair himself, gaining T-1000-like abilities. With his new abilities, the Guardian was able to free Kyle and Sarah from the bunker, initially confusing them as they thought he was another T-1000 when he used his new swords to open the door. With Skynet seemingly destroyed, they travelled to Kyle's childhood home where Kyle instructed his younger self to remember a message that would help them defeat Skynet. Watching Kyle interact with his younger self, the Guardian gave Sarah his approval in the form of admitting that Kyle is a good man. Believing they were free and have changed the future, Sarah and Kyle decided to make their own future together and kissed. When looked at for approval, the Guardian gave them his version of a smile and they drove off together. Programming The Guardian has been reprogrammed to protect humans rather than kill them. Terminators straight off the assembly line have their CPUs set to read-only, though for the purpose of long-term infiltration they can have their learning capacities adjusted so that they can better blend in and earn the trust of their human targets. Presumably the Guardian's CPU was reset by those who had sent him back in time to protect Sarah, but they also erased all of his memories regarding them, so he could not reveal their identities when Kyle asked who had sent him. Whether by his benefactors or by Sarah, the Guardian's CPU has been adjusted so that he is capable of learning human behaviour. He has picked up various human mannerisms, though Sarah has had difficulty teaching him to behave like a human, partially due to the fact that Guardian, a machine, has raised her for half her life. Over the years, Sarah and the Guardian have established something of a familial bond; when Kyle Reese joins them, Guardian expresses concern and acts protectively of Sarah, yet he also encourages the two to mate so that their offspring will become the prophecized leader of humanity against Skynet in the future. Capabilities The Guardian possesses all of the capabilities of the standard T-800 model Terminator. He possesses superior strength, can think strategically, mimic any human voice perfectly, use any weapon that a human can wield as well as a variety of heavy weapons that humans would be unable to lift. His artificially-grown flesh can also heal with little need for medical attention, though the process does take time depending on the severity of damage sustained. The skin covering also ages over time; Terminators rarely remained active for longer than a few months or years as they would be destroyed in battle long before their power cells were exhausted or their flesh deteriorated, but the Guardian has remained active for at least four decades, much longer than any other Terminator. During that time, his skin has become noticeably wrinkled and his hair has receded and lost its pigmentation. Category:Movie Robots Category:Androids Category:Cyborgs Category:Terminator Category:War Machines Category:Artificial Intelligence